Pioneer Flour Mill Site
Near Salt Lake City, Utah
Near this spot, in the spring of eighteen forty-eight, John Neff built the first flour mill in the Salt Lake Valley, and one of the first true industries of the Mormon pioneers.
Neff carried the grinding stones west from Winter Quarters in Nebraska, bought at the request of Brigham Young, and his mill began turning in March of that year, the first in the valley to produce refined flour. He is remembered as much for his generosity as his machinery. He is said to have refused high prices from emigrants bound for California, selling instead to the local poor at a low price, and often simply giving it away.
Neff's mill was the first of many. The Neffs founded the settlement of East Mill Creek, and over the following decades many mills lined the stream that gave Mill Creek its name.
